Finger wipes or covers are known and used in the art for a variety of purposes. A common use of finger wipes (also know as a “finger glove” in the art) is for applying ointments, medications, alcohol, oral anesthetics, and the like, to various body parts. Such devices may also be utilized to remove various substances, such as makeup, or to clean body parts or other objects.
Finger wipes have proven particularly useful in the field of dental hygiene in that they provide a portable and efficient means for more frequent dental care, and as a cleaning device that can be easily used in public. In particular, a number of finger-mounted teeth cleaning devices have been developed that can be placed over a finger and wiped over the user's teeth and gums. These devices are typically small, portable, and disposable.
Examples of oral cleaning devices and finger wipes are disclosed, for instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,721,987 to McDevitt. et al. and in U.S. Pat. No. 6,647,549 also to McDevitt, et al., which are incorporated herein by reference. An oral hygiene finger device is also described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,445,825 to Copelan et al. Other finger-mounted teeth cleaning devices were developed to contain an elastomeric material to help prevent the device from slipping or falling off the user's finger during cleaning. Examples of such teeth cleaning devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,068,941 to Dunn; U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,153 to Cole; U.S. Pat. No. 5,524,764 to Kaufman et al.; and PCT Publication No. WO 95/31154 to Mittiga et al.
Finger wipes that incorporate an integral additive or composition, such as an oral hygiene agent, are a convenient and desirable product. However, it may be difficult to incorporate an adequate supply of the desired composition with certain conventional finger wipe constructions, or to adequately preserve or protect the additive prior to use. For example, the use of an aqueous adhesive composition to apply the additive directly to the wipe can be problematic for certain types of additives, particularly certain types of soluble compositions, such as encapsulated compositions, including flavoring oils and the like. These encapsulated additives are intended to be activated by the user's saliva or water upon use, but can prematurely interact with the aqueous adhesive during initial application, thus resulting in an overall decrease in the effectiveness of the additive.
It is also a desirable feature of conventional finger wipes to incorporate a textured outer surface to enhance the cleaning or scrubbing effect of the wipes. For example, conventional wipes may include an outer nonwoven material layer that has been thermally bonded in a pattern so as to produce protruding unbonded regions, sometimes referred to in the art as “point unbonded” (PUB) material. These materials serve a useful purpose, but increase the difficulty and complexity of incorporating desired additives to the wipe.
Thus, a need exists in the art for improved ways to incorporate additives with a wipe, particularly for wipes incorporating water soluble additives.